Sydney Waters
My Story
I was born and raised in Crystal Lake, Illinois, a Northwest suburb of Chicago. I am the youngest of four children, and I am extremely grateful to have a beautiful example of parents. My love for travel and my adventurous side comes from my family, the actual coolest family in the whole world.
Bold and brave at seven years old, I convinced my parents to go to sleep away summer camp in Honesdale, Pennsylvania, where I started my nine year summer adventure at Camp Cayuga. This place not only sparked my interest in unique places and people, it taught me how to be independent from a young age. One of the best decisions my family and I ever made was spending my summers at Cayuga.
From then on, it was almost impossible to keep track of all of my adventures. During summers in between my high school years, I traveled with Global Works all around Spain, Costa Rica, New Zealand, and Fiji. These summer trips pushed boundaries with community service, cultural exchange, and language immersion. Little did I know, this would only be the beginning of getting out of my comfort zone.
At seventeen years old, I decided to graduate a semester early from high school and leave my hometown. With CIEE, I moved to Paris to live with a French host family, and let’s just say learning Spanish all throughout high school did not help. I stepped off the plane only knowing “bonjour” and “merci”, and I started my four month long journey. Eleven countries, twenty cities, and a hundred bakeries were visited during those four months and I wouldn’t change anything about that experience.
And of course, the studying abroad did not stop there. In Fall 2017, I went on to study Communications and Visual Arts at the University of San Diego. USD is nationally ranked as one of the top college study abroad programs in the country, which lead me to study for three weeks in Bali, Indonesia and three weeks in London, England in the summer of 2018. A year later and I was back in Paris, France for four months for my first-semester junior year. I feel incredibly blessed that I was capable of going abroad when I did. Not long after I returned home, the whole world changed. I never appreciated my privilege to travel more than I did in 2020.
As the world recovers, I am hopeful for the future of travel. The intention of this blog is to sit in your sweatpants and dream of your next trip, your next amazing meal, or the next occasion to have a nice bottle of wine. It’s a place to explore and to discover. I hope you can follow along with my travel journey as much as I will with yours.
I want to extend a thank you to everyone who has been a part of my journey, but the biggest thank you and hug to my parents. I am fearless and independent because of you.
With Love, Sydney Waters
Feeling insanely grateful, I graduated from the University of San Diego in May 2021. I am currently working as a commercial real estate agent specializing in restaurant leasing and strategy.
Travel Correspondents
Cath Lay, Art Curator
I’m Cath Lay, with an international family I’ve always been enthusiastic and passionate about traveling the world. I moved to New York City from London when I was sixteen and spent my last two years of high school there. New York was fun in my late teens but I was always itching for a more laid back, beachy lifestyle. I then left for California, specifically San Diego, for college and have been in CA ever since.
With my parents in different countries and a sister in the US Air Force I’ve been from America, to Europe, to South Korea. I’ve been blessed to see so many places through my family and my education with a semester in Paris with Sydney. After achieving a degree in Interdisciplinary Humanities studies it is no wonder I love to learn about other cultures and see the different lifestyles people live around the world.
When traveling my priorities are always good food with great friends, incredible museums, and long strolls around the local neighborhoods. I’m so glad to have found a travel community in THE WATERS EDIT and look forward to the travel memories that are yet to come.
Lachlan Eicholzer
I was born and raised in Upstate New York. When I was eighteen I moved from Syracuse to Southern California to attend the University of San Diego. Growing up, my memories consist of road trips to Jackson Hole, hiking and exploring national parks along the way. From a young age, the value of travel was impressed upon me. By the time I was twelve I’d seen forty of our fifty states. I made it a mission to see as much of the world as I could while I still can, a sentiment that’s stayed with me all these years.
I didn’t leave the U.S. until my fourteenth birthday, when my family took a trip to Greece. I vividly recall standing in the ruins of Delphi, thinking of the people there before me. That trip radically changed my perception of the world and my place in it. Around that same time, I developed a love for photography, beginning with Polaroids and my grandpa’s vintage film camera.
Since then, I’ve been fortunate enough to visit Central America, study abroad in New Zealand, and return to Europe while capturing all the sweet moments in between. I currently live in San Diego, and have continued living part time in Jackson during the summers. With my parents in New York, my brother in Colorado, and my sister living in Edinburgh, Scotland, I’ve had to adopt a somewhat transient lifestyle. I’m here to share all the tips (and pics) that I have.
THE WATERS EDIT 